So happy to find!

Last week was our local homeschool curriculum swap. If I had planned it a little better, I could have boxed up some items and been out there selling some things that I don't need anymore. But the kids and I headed over and as I was looking around, I found a couple of things I was really excited about!

My first find was 'Before Five in a Row' by Jane Claire Lambert. Now you might be thinking, why did she need to purchase this book when she just graduated her first student and her other student is 12? Good question! I went through this book with Kelsey when she was little and I really loved the format. However, I loaned the book to someone years ago and have never seen it come back.

One of the reasons I want to keep this book on hand is in the hopes of one day having grandchildren and being able to spend time with them like my friend, Copperswife. I love that she is able to spend an afternoon each week with her grandchildren, teaching them some fun lessons and spending time together.  What a blessing that must be for her, her daughter, and her grandchildren.

This book was a great bargain! The person was selling it for $2! Now I already have this book, but I have the older edition. This new edition has over 100 new pages included of new material! I may give my older edition to one of the young moms at church who are considering homeschooling.

I like to read homeschooling books like this one over the summer. Like Clay and Sally say in the preface, "This book is designed to give you, a Christian parent and home educator, greater confidence in the stewardship of your children." My homeschool journey is not over. Kelsey and I will be spending the next 5 to 6 years together. Even though I have one homeschool graduate under my belt, there is still room for me to learn and improve so that I can continue to 'train up my children in the way they should go'.

What homeschool books are your favorites?

Compassion Letter Writing Fingerpaint Project

Last night we held our monthly Compassion Sponsor Letter Writing Night. We were hoping to work on this project for each one of our kids:

Source: attackofthetwins.blogspot.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

However, we soon found out that painter's tape doesn't come off of fingerpaint paper very well:

The original project was done on canvas, and we know we can't send canvas to our Compassion kids so we used fingerpaint paper instead. The paper started to rip in some places, so we decided to still use the fingerpainting, but in a couple of different ways.

I went ahead and fingerpainted a page for each one of our sponsored kids and my correspondent kids

Then, I drew out the letters of their names that could be cut out and glued to the fingerpaint page

Here is the one for Xiomara

One for Abner

My husband decided to cut the letters out of the fingerpainted paper.

I love how these turned out and can't wait for all the kids to receive them!

Blueberries!

Today, the kids and I were able to head out for a day trip with some friends of ours. Our first stop was the $1 movie at our local Regal theater.

Today, we saw the Kit Kittredge movie. Everyone really enjoyed it!

Then we drove over to the blueberry place! After a picnic lunch, we found our buckets and worked our way over to the blueberry bushes.

They look ready to work!

After 90 to 100 degree weather over the weekend, then cooler and rain yesterday, today was a perfect day for picking blueberries!

We ended up with 10.5 pounds of blueberries, one pound more than last year... :o)

After we get home, I start sorting through them all. We usually end up with some green ones and squishy ones that need to be tossed.

I line a cookie sheet with wax paper and fill the tray with a layer of good berries.

Once the tray is full, the tray goes in the freezer for a couple of hours.

After the berries are frozen, I put one cup of berries in a snack size bag. These bags go into a larger freezer bag and are stored in the freezer. This is a great way to have 'fresh' berries all year long for muffins, smoothies, etc.

Have you done any fun summer things yet?

First Peter Bible Study

When I was in school, I never really cared for those English classes where you were assigned a book to read and then you had to interpret it. I loved to read, just never really liked having to figure out what the author was trying to tell you, trying to figure out the plot, the characters, and all that other stuff teachers liked to torture you with.

Since becoming a Christian almost 13 years ago, I have read through the Bible a few times now and have spent many hours of group study with other ladies at our church. But study the Bible on my own? Too intimidating for me!

However, I know that in order for me to continue to grow in my relationship with Christ, I really need to start taking the time to study the Bible on a more consistent basis. I was so glad to get an e-mail this week with a link for a new Bible study on 1 Peter that is starting up tomorrow.

The Bible study will be a six week study that will cover 6 passages from 1 Peter, rather than the whole book of 1 Peter. Now, this sounds like something I can do! Want to join me?

Little Abner

I just love this little guy!

Since I became Abner's correspondent sponsor back in October, I have received 3 letters from him. It seems to take about 2 months for his letters to arrive in my mailbox. Abner is the little guy who lives in Colombia and has a parrot named Rebeca.

So after being gone for a week, I was so excited with a new letter from Abner! There were 2 pages! The first page was on typical Compassion stationery and it says:

"Dear Yvonne:

I greet you in the love of the Lord hoping that you are enjoying good health. I want to tell you that I have lots of fun in the project with my teachers and I do nice things; I made a snowflake and I am learning to dance, drama, and folklore music. In drama we are working in our emotions and about our daily activities.

I thank you for your letter and the beautiful pictures. I had a nice birthday, I had a great time and ate cake. I received a heavy duty truck and a couple of toy limousines too.

I pray for all of you that God blesses you more each day.

I now say goodbye with a strong hug hoping that God blesses you always."

OK, so reading this almost makes me want to cry! But imagine my surprise when I looked on the next page and saw a picture of Abner smiling!



This next page says:

"This is me one day with my brothers and we are playing. We took a lot of pictures and this was one of them.

This is the mascot of our house. Her name is Rebeca. We had talked about her before. I hope you like it. I love her dearly.

On a good day, I will see if I can send one of everyone in my family, for now I send a hug and kisses. God Bless You. Thank you very much."

Recently, I was blessed with the opportunity to send a package for Abner with another sponsor who was traveling to Colombia to visit her Compassion kids. I know Abner loves to draw and I can't wait for him to receive the colored pencils I sent to him.

One day I pray that I will have the opportunity to visit one of our Compassion kids. Sometimes I am overwhelmed with how important these kids have become in my life. We pray for each one of them daily and send them all at least one letter each month. I pray they realize what a blessing they are to my life, knowing that one day, we will all be rejoicing together in heaven!

Our week in the 1860's

Last week, the kids and I headed over to Felton for the week. The first part of our adventure included spending 3 days with about 1800 school kids. Each day, from 8:40 in the morning until about 1:15 in the afternoon, the kids rotated through 12 stations learning more about Civil War history.

While I was teaching the kids about the role of civilian women...

Matthew was drilling each group of kids...

For most of the first 3 days, we were the only tent over in our area...

We had some beautiful mornings though...

Starting on Friday afternoon, we were joined by many more reenactors for the weekend. For this long holiday weekend, there were 2 battles on Saturday and Sunday, a dance on Saturday night, a train ride for the reenactors on Sunday night, a Memorial Day service on Monday, and ended with one last battle on Monday afternoon. By late Monday afternoon, the kids and I were so ready to head home!

Here are just a few of my favorite photos from the weekend...

Love seeing the red, white, and blue moving in the breeze...

Kelsey wearing her new skirt and top...



Wait a minute? I wonder who this could be? :o)

Kelsey decided to put on a uniform, go out for the battle, and bandage up injured soldiers. She is right in the middle of this picture.

Matthew in his role as 2nd Lieutenant.

Visiting our friends at their sutler shop is always a learning experience!

Beautiful evening for a train ride up to Bear Mountain



Homeschool High School Graduation!

It has been 2 weeks already since we graduated our first student from high school!

This is Matthew on his first day of school

We wanted to make this a special day for Matthew, so I really wanted to involve him in the planning process of the ceremony. I asked him to decide the outline of the ceremony and decide who would be speaking. I told him I would like him to write out his speech and asked that it be at least 1 1/2 to 2 pages, typed.

He helped me to create a simple announcement that we were able to print as 4 x 6 photos (that 9 cent per print coupon from Costco came in handy!). I was in charge of ordering the cakes and picking up decorations.

About 2 weeks before the ceremony, I started working on a big photo project:

I have these 2 albums that I have always planned to put together for each one of the kids with pictures from their school years. I thought it would be too hard to have the photos in an album for the ceremony, I wanted people to be able to see the photos from all of Matthew's school years. So I mounted all the photos on cardstock and randomly placed them on project boards. I printed so many pictures that they filled up four project boards!

We had the ceremony at our church in the afternoon. This worked out well so that family and friends that were from out of town could get there in time for the ceremony.

Matthew had our pastor speak first:

Then our youth pastor:



Next was his dad:

Then it was my turn (yes, I did cry!)

Finally, Matthew gave his speech. I didn't even read it ahead of time.

After Matthew gave his speech, a few of his friends joined him to play a song. Then his dad presented him with his diploma!

I probably should have asked someone to take pictures for me and video tape the ceremony. Oh well! We do have an MP3 file of the audio of the graduation ceremony though! I hope you are able to take the time to listen to the ceremony. It will be something I will treasure!

Overall, I am really pleased with how the ceremony came together. We were so blessed to have family, friends, neighbors, and many members of our church family present.

At this time, Matthew has applied to a local junior college for the fall. We are looking forward to seeing where God leads Matthew from here!